I came across an entry in 2018 Communication Arts Design Annual. Little & Company a Minneapolis design firm appears to rank as important in the submissions in the packaging category. Work for their client, Fair State Brewing Cooperative presents another “what the…” moment. Take a look.

I came across an article in Communication Arts that featured Akufen. Akufen is a Canadian interactive and advertising agency producing cutting edge work. Last year they created a site for the 100th anniversary of Dada.

Looking back on thirty years of studio work is a pleasure to ponder this year.

The current iteration of this design studio focuses mainly on two dimensional art, photography and video. In 2016 FJ Studios reached a milestone that I am quite surprised to have achieved.

I started a pre-press service bureau in 1986. I called it Nova Graphic Services Bureau. I enjoyed many years of productive printing press and advertising development. As technology presented stronger opportunities for progress, NGSB evolved. It accelerated in growth first as a four color art house and later into a full featured source for independent creative direction and marketing direction.

Being able to offer corporate level creative to small businesses, individual artists and writers was a unique approach. This studio was founded on the principle that all imagery still or moving, all illustration and all layout design should be unique and custom shot and certainly designed from scratch.

By avoiding stock artwork and stock photography in favor of something fresh, created entirely based on the clients perception of their place in their own market, FJ Studios, it turns out has produced quite a collection in thirty years of continual work.

Enjoy the showcase of examples right here as I continue to collect them and add to our current portfolio. Please stop by often to see what else I can uncover in the archives.

Best wishes and thank you for your continued patronage and support.
Foster Johnson

Sending your Adobe Premiere Pro projects directly into SpeedGrade just got easier with the 2015 release of both applications. Just use the “Direct Link to Adobe SpeedGrade…” command in the Premiere Pro File menu. Also, you now have access to the Lumetri color engine if you choose to stay in Premiere. Grading and correcting can be done without leaving your favorite editor. So the question arises, if I can color correct in Premiere using the same tools that I would use in SpeedGrade, then why do I need SpeedGrade?

Match the late in the day sky with the early morning sky with one click.

After the “Match look to Master playhead button” was clicked.

Sometimes it’s the real estate. Color correcting and shot matching in SG is done with a dedicated user interface. The application frame is designed for the task. The same processes if handled in Premiere is done inside of a tightly packed Premiere workspace panel.

SpeedGrade has a lot more going for it than just handling those processes. Besides dedicated workspaces for pan and scan, having multiple playheads driving multiple views of the timeline is critical to matching shots with professional judgment, especially when your attempt to explain a waveform scope isn’t helping the client seated next to you.

Three playheads control three views.

Color timing, matching and grading are jobs that require (at a minimum) some focus and a small amount of dedicated skill and understanding. Do you really want your editors spending hours on a process better suited for a program like SpeedGrade and driven by a person that understands color? As usual the choice is yours. The money, on the other hand is there to make. Having the wrong person or application trying to complete a specialized task? Well the money is there to waste. I hope it’s your money, not the client’s.

In ancient days when phones were mainly used to transfer audible sources from one place to another, many a wise network technician in the broadcast arena dreamed of a remote camera operator, moving quickly and lightly to report in the field. The idea was to create as close to a live broadcast as possible without the need of a satellite up-link truck.

In the late 1990s and even into this millennium a popular solution was to place multiple cell phones together and attach them to the back top of an ENG camera to send the data from camera over what was then the cellular network. Why more than one phone? If you could parcel the data package you could achieve more secure throughput as well as increase the total transfer capacity, even supply redundancy.

That brings us to the marvelous sunrise of today, where just about anyone can accomplish the same task with a simple handset embedded with a little bit more intelligence than the average child. Apps like Periscope handle the broadcast setup and connection, however the phone mainly does the same job. The process just seems even more logical since the transmission device already has a camera.

What if we want broadcast quality, with cameras that have large sensors and even larger lenses? Can we still communicate back to the base studio without the need to access a satellite?

I think you knew, the answer is yes. In a discussion with entrepreneur and event shooter Rob Macabuhay we researched and discovered that the same hardware makers in the early days of data transfer camera systems lead the way in HD, Ultra HD or let’s just call it 4k with massive color depth. Here’s a list of the still existent major players;

If news stations are willing to accept a reporter’s “live” feed that they have to shoot using their iPhone when the satellite up-link is down – to avoid missing the story. Just imagine how you can take advantage of identical color spaces on multiple cameras as well as remote controlled cameras groups for your own creative, documentary or live productions.

Shoot through eyepiece direct to the on-set editor’s monitor from multiple cameras feeding glorious high bit-depth footage with creative focus, depth of field and professional stops.

Digital tools abound for taking notes, commenting on clips and frames inside of clips. I’m sure they are all quite wonderful. Sometimes a small piece of media to write a quick reminder or “note” is all you need. Digital stickies and small tiles can obscure what you’re looking for or at. At Foster Johnson Studios, I plan to use this pad of media.

Scott Hayden has the info in his April 23 article at roadtovr.com. I have my own Samsung 360 camera and I love the ease and flexibility. Give it a read. I highly recommend the info! https://www.roadtovr.com/samsung-funds-episodic-vr-videos-filmmakers-use-companys-10k-round-360-camera/

Achieved a decent milestone in December. Clarendon CR Design has a Unity Certified Developer status. You can trust that Unity 3D simulations built by Clarendon CR Design are high quality and effective. Even Unity says so.

Opportunities like this are quite rare. Store No 8 presents Innov8: V-commerce It is a challenge to the virtual reality developer community. Let’s take that challenge. Think up a new way to shop. A new way to engage in commerce. You don’t have to be a member of the virtual reality developer community. If you … Continue reading An Invitation to Innovate→